Welcome to the wonderful world of rowing, or "crew" as its crazed participants like to call it. You will no longer fail to answer correctly when someone asks you the famous trivia sports question: "In what sport do the participants cross the finish line while sitting down and going backwards?"
As a crew parent, you will be expected to absorb mysteriously the meaning of a whole new jargon. (What's so bad about a crab? Is first seat in the front or back? What's an "erg" besides a unit of energy?) You will be asked to drive great distances and spend major amounts of time in unpredictable weather to observe perhaps one minute of a race -- and that minute neither the start nor the finish! You will be asked to provide some modest financial support and lots of emotional support (and food!) for a sport that does not appear to be particularly difficult or demanding, or even that rewarding for the participants. What's it all about?
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A Short History of Crew as a Sport
Rowing as a team sport developed in the 1800's, notably at Oxford and Cambridge in England and at Yale and Harvard in the United States. The Harvard/Yale race, first held in 1852, is the oldest inter-collegiate athletic event in America. The first amateur sports association in this country was a rowing organization -- Philadelphia's Schuylkill Navy, in 1858 -- and the first national governing body for a sport in America was the National Association for Amateur Oarsmen, founded in 1872.
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Rowing at Simsbury began around 1971 when some enthusiasts bought a used eight and hung it from slings near the Chart House. As the sport grew in popularity and moved from the hobby to club to varsity sport stages, the parents group, the Friends of Simsbury Crew, was incorporated in 1977 to support the rowers both emotionally and financially. While the individual rower does not need any fancy equipment to row, no padding, helmets, spikes or sticks, the team's equipment is quite expensive. Because of that expense, and the need for water for practices, relatively few public high schools offer rowing as a sport.
The Simsbury High School crew has earned a fine record over the years. It has won respect in major regattas, and on four occasions, boats were also sent to England to participate in the Royal Henley Regatta, the oldest, largest, and most colorful rowing event in the world.
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Fundraisers
Traditions are often born out of necessity. Some of ours are rooted in the financial necessity of supplementing the allocations from the Board of Education for our sport.
Crew is a two-season sport, having races in both the Fall and the Spring (although the Spring is the only "official" season in which a letter can be earned). Most fund-raising activities are therefore reserved for the late-fall and winter. Besides raising money, these activities maintain team-comradeship.
In the late Fall, the team operates a leaf-raking service. All team members are expected to participate. There is a waiting list for eager customers.
In the Winter, the team holds a grinder sale for Super Bowl Sunday. Again, all team members participate both in selling the grinders and in making and distributing them.
Another fund raiser is the "erg-a-thon." Rowers solicit pledges for every so-many meters rowed, then get together on a weekend to have a sort of rowing marathon in conjunction with the family picnic.
Pasta Dinners
During the racing season, it is customary for rowers to get together at someone's house the night before a race and share a spaghetti dinner. In a team spirit, each member brings to the dinner a food or drink item. Usually early on in the season, team members exchange "psych-boxes" in preparation for the season’s first race. Boxes are decorated with school colors and contain treats of some kind.
Races
Parents are welcome at all races, of course. It is traditional for parents attending races to bring both food and liquid (non-alcoholic) refreshment to share with other parents and especially the team. This meeting place is the "common table". At the table you will find water and snacks provided by the team's families, race times and results. Be prepared to receive an email prior to each race asking you to provide a food or beverage for the table. The purpose of the common table is NOT to provide breakfast or lunch, but a before and/or after race snack. Because the bus must leave the boathouse so early (many times at 5:30 a.m.), you child is quite hungry when he/she reaches the launch site. Please send with your child a water bottle and a bag lunch.
The Cheer
This cheer is the traditional cheer that is used at the launch, as a Simsbury High School boat pulls away from the dock and begins to row to the start of the race:
Give a yell, give a yell
Give a good old fashioned yell
And when we yell we yell like this and
This is what we yell:
Alabam
Alabam
Alabamdiego sandiego
Horcus porcus
Kiss my torcus
Shish boom bah
Shish boom bah
Simsbury Simsbury Rah Rah Rah!
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What Crew Means for its Participants
There can be no "stars" on a successful crew; success or failure are the result of everyone working together or failing to do so. No individual rower "catches a crab", it is "we caught a crab" if that is in fact what happened.
Some rowers find pleasure in the coordinated and smooth movement of the boat through the water. Others find that competition is necessary, during which all must row as one, with individual rowers transcending their own limitations in order to support the crew. For many, the feeling of comradeship that develops on a team that has strained so hard in practices together, is a major selling point.
For nearly all rowers, however, the mystical feeling of "swing" seems to be the major reward of crew. Whether winning or losing a race, or even just in a practice session, when everyone is rowing together in perfectly synchronized timing, and the boat is balanced properly and just gliding through the water, individual rowers can lose themselves in the perfection of the moment. These few moments are enough to justify the hours of practice, the physical exhaustion, and the personal relationship-building that were needed to create them.
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What Crew Means for the Parents
Crew means never having to cook on Super Bowl Sunday. It's an opportunity to experience all sorts of weather you would never normally get to experience in person. It means few family mealtimes and rarely even seeing your offspring in-season. It means never taking a spring vacation or having time on spring or fall weekends to visit colleges.
It also means you'll have a son or daughter who is physically fit and self-disciplined. They will probably have higher grades than if they did not participate in a sport. They will certainly have an unusual and attractive activity to list on their resumes. And they will be associating with a very fine peer group that will teach them an enormous amount about teamwork and their capacity to strive and achieve excellence.
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A Coach's Advice for the Parents
Prior to a race, the rowers are getting themselves mentally prepared for the physical effort soon to be required of them. Please try not to disrupt their concentration at this time.
If you would like to have the rowers pose for a picture, please do so after their race.
Please do not attend coach's meetings with the team unless you have been invited by the coach.
All of our competitions are "away". Since this makes it hard for other students to support the team, your support is all the more important. Please try to attend at least some of the team's regattas. Also, remember that all rowers must travel both ways on the team bus unless the coach has a note from the parents authorizing alternative transportation. Unless there are specific reasons requiring early departure, we would appreciate all rowers staying around to support all boats throughout each regatta.
Rowing is one of the most physically demanding of all sports. It demands high effort from all the major muscle groups (arms, back, shoulders, legs) and burns energy about twice as fast as running does. Naturally, the rowers need adequate rest and healthy diets, high in carbohydrates and low in fats. As with all sports at Simsbury High School, alcohol or other drug use is cause for being dropped from the team.
Selection of rowers for a particular boat is the coach's job, not the team's, not the stroke's, not the coxswain's, and not the parents'. The decision about which boat any one rower is on is a complicated one, incorporating the rower's strength, personality, technique, which side he or she rows on (port or starboard), attitude, and the nature of the event (whether we are entering a four or an eight, whether it's a "youth" or light-weight event, etc.). Sometimes a coach's decision is unpopular, especially if changes are made late in the season, after a boat has gotten used to each other. Please credit the coaches with doing their best to make choices for the good of the overall team and rowing program.
Finally, please support the Friends of Simsbury Crew. It seems there is never a time when budgets are not tight, and the Board of Education is only able to provide the minimum necessities for the program, such as coach's stipends and transportation for the team and the equipment. The money required for capital outlays and maintenance of the boathouse, shells, oars, and chase-boats for the coaches is all supplied by the Friends' organization, and without this support, the rowing program could not continue.
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Equipment
BoatsPersonnel
At a large regatta, such as the Head of the Charles, you may see eight different kinds of boats raced. Rowers in boats in which each rower handles two oars are called scullers. These come in singles, doubles, and quads. Rowers with only one oar are called sweep rowers. These come as doubles, with and without coxswain, fours, with and without (without coxswains are also called "straight pairs" or "straight fours"), and eights with coxswain. At the high school level, you will normally only see fours-with and eights. Coxswains normally sit in the stern, where they can see the whole boat and communicate face-to-face with the stroke, but you may also see boats with the coxswain in the bow, lying nearly prone. This inhibits communications somewhat, but reduces wind resistance and improves the weight distribution in the boat. All the boats are called shells, although boats rowed by scullers are also called sculls. A new, quality eight costs about $17,000.Bow
The front of the boat.Stern
The back of the boat.Deck
That portion of the bow and stern that are covered with fiberglass cloth or thin plastic.Oars
Oars propel the boat through the water. Sweep oars are about 12-13 feet long and made of wood (sturdy) or graphite (lighter). They cost about $250 each.Blade
The wide part of the oar that is used to move the boat through the water. The blade is painted with the school's colors and is a way to distinguish among boats at a distance.Gate
The bar across the oarlock that keeps the oar in place.Button
A wide collar on the oar that keeps it from slipping through the oarlock.Rigger
The triangular-shaped metal device that is bolted onto the side of the boat and holds the oars.Slide
The little tracks in which the seats are set to allow the seats to move back and forth as the rower completes his or her movement.Stretcher
Where the rower's feet go. The stretcher consists of two inclined footrests which hold the rower's shoes. The shoes are bolted into the footrests.Cox-box
An electronic amplifier for the coxswain's voice that plugs into a speaker system built into the boat, so that each rower can hear his or her instructions. It also contains a strokemeter which works from the magnet under the stroke's seat and measures the cadence, or strokes rowed per minute.Ergometer
Also called and "erg," it's a rowing machine that closely approximates the actual rowing motion. The verb "to erg" means to work out on an ergometer. An "erg piece" is a particular set of work on the ergometer, such as rowing 2500 meters. Erg tests are used by coaches to ascertain an athlete's aerobic and endurance capabilities. There is even a World Indoor Rowing Championship event, the "Crash-B's" held annually in Boston.Races
There are two types of races: Head races, and sprints. Head races are usually held in the Fall and sprints in the Spring. Sprints are 1500 meters for high school and 2000 meters for college. In sprints, boats race directly against each other in lanes on a marked straight or nearly straight course. In larger meets, there will usually be qualifying rounds, then petite finals for non-qualifying boats and grand finals for the top finishers in the qualifying rounds. Qualification is by placement, not by time, i.e. a second place boat in one heat will qualify before a fourth place boat in another, even if the fourth place boat had a better time. Head races are longer, usually 2.5 to 3.5 miles, and are times events. Boats start off typically at 15 second intervals and all race the same course, often with many turns, following the course of the river.
CoxswainEtiquette
The person who steers the shell and is the on-the-water coach, cheerleader, and strategist. Pronounced "cox-n".Bowman or Bow
The rower whose back is closest to the front of the boat, i.e. the first rower to cross the finish line. This is also the #1 seat.Stroke
The #8 seat, the rower sitting closest to the stern. The stroke sets the rhythm for the boat; others behind must follow that cadence.
CrewTechnique
"Crew" means rowing team, so don't inquire about the crew "team" since the word "team" is redundant. The nine people--a crew-- when placed in a shell are called a "boat". One does not refer to an empty shell as a "boat". Heads up An eight is 58 feet long, so it takes a lot of room to maneuver it. If you hear "heads up" someone is trying to move a boat in your vicinity, and you are expected to make way.Records
Don't ask about record times, since they are so influenced by weather conditions as to be virtually meaningless.Regatta
Any rowing event involving competition. Any race is a regatta, however, large or small. Races are never called "meets" or "games" and rowers do not "play crew". A popular crew slogan is "Athletes row. Others play games".
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The number of strokes per minute at which the team is rowing. At the start of the race, the rate is high perhaps 40 for an eight then settles to the low 30's for the body of the race, then may move back to the low 40's for a finishing sprint.Catching a Crab
When an oar blade enters the water at an angle, instead of perpendicularly, it can get caught under the surface. The oar handle drives into the stomach and has the potential to throw a rower out of the boat entirely! Even if not that disastrous, "catching a crab" will certainly drastically interrupt the flow of the boat through the water.Catch
The "catch" is the point in the stroke where the oar blade enters the water. The catch is supposed to happen at the very end of the recovery, when the hands are as far ahead of the rower as possible. Rowers who begin to uncoil before they drop the oar blades are sacrificing speed by not getting a complete drive. "Lunging at the catch" means the motion is not smooth. If you see a lot of splash at the catch, assuming the water is relatively smooth (or "flat"), the oar blades are not entering the water properly.Set
The balance and feel of the boat. The most efficient boats are balanced evenly over the center line and remain so throughout the strokes. If rowers are not aligned properly, or a rower swings off center as part of his or her motion during a stroke, or if rowers on one side of the boat are pulling with more or less force than the other side, the set of the boat can be altered, introducing drag into its motion.Feathering
When the blades are brought out of the water, then should all move horizontally at the same height, just above the water. The rower is "skying" if the hands are dropped too low before the catch, causing the oar blade to rise before it drops into the water. Proper feathering is always difficult, but becomes extremely challenging in choppy water.Drive
Just after the catch, the rower begins pulling back on the oar. Initially, the body position should not change; all the work is being done by the legs. Then, the upper body begins to uncoil, and the arms start their work of pulling the oar through the water. Finally, the rower pulls his or her hands quickly to the body, finishing in a "layback" position.Finish
After the drive, the oar handle is moved down, drawing the oar blade from the water. At the same time, it is turned horizontal to the surface ("feathered").Recovery
The oar remains out of the water as the rower first pushes his or her hands away form the body and past the knees. Then the body follows the hands and the sliding seat moves forward until, knees bent the rower is ready for the next catch.Pressure
The amount of effort a rower puts into the stroke. Races, of course, are conducted at full pressure, but practices and warm-ups may entail a series of strokes at half or three-quarter pressure.Swing
The inexpressible "feel" of a boat that is moving together as a single unit.
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